Dirt Clod

This afternoon Garth and I had a chance to play racquetball.  Cale usually plays on the nearby playground or right outside the door with his cars while we are in there.  During the game today, I heard a “Bang! Bang! Bang!” against the door.  Opening it I noticed my beautiful son standing there, brown from the amount of mud smeared all over, with outstretched hands full of his latest mud treasure.  He was very proud of this creation and wanted me to celebrate the joy of mud with him. “Look, Mommy!  Look what I made!”  Now depending on how you look at it, either you see two hands full of mud, dirt, grass and other assorted earthly finds, or you see a haphazard piece of organic art carefully sculpted by a four year old.  I chose to be impressed.

Thinking about that incident later, I realized that we are often like that mud.  Well, I know that I am.  I will feel lousy about myself, or how things went, or things I should have done differently, or said or not said…and I feel bad.  Like a dirt clod.  Ever feel like that?  But the Bible says that God made us-He formed us and we captivate Him.  We amaze Him.  He is thrilled that we exist.  So whether we feel like a precious piece of art or not, He is excited in us.  His hands are outstretched ready to take that clod of dirt and do something awesome with it.  Something amazing.

So don’t despair when things go wrong and you feel fairly useless.  Remember, there is someone who thinks that you are beyond incredible. 

You take His breath away!

And I love you too!

Rachel

Minestrone Soup

I wanted to give you the minestrone recipe that I made last week.  It is so super yummy and would be a perfect meal for a cold winter night or a rainy day.

MINESTRONE SOUP
2 cans (one 28 oz, and one 14 ½ oz) diced tomatoes, undrained  - I did not buy cans the right size.  I had three cans of Mexican or Italian tomatoes and I used those.  I pureed them in the blender so they weren’t in chunks

2 cups water

2 medium carrots, sliced

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium zucchini, chopped – We do not have zucchini here so I did not add that

1 pkg. (3 ½ oz) pepperoni  - did not have that either

2 tsp. garlic

2 tsp. chicken bouillon granules

½ tsp. dried basil

½ tsp. oregano

2 cans (16 oz. each) kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry – I used fresh stuff I found at the pasar (market)

1 ¼ cups cooked elbow macaroni  - I did not measure, I put in a small  box

Shredded parmesan cheese – We don’t have that here

You can put the first 10 ingredients in crock pot.  Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or so.

I do not have a crock pot so I simmered it on the stove for about 45 minutes or so.  One time I added some ground beef but it would be so super duper yummy with ground up Italian sausage or little chunks of sausage.

I made garlic bread sticks to go with it and it was wonderful.

Two Sides to the Coin

If you gave me a plane ticket home today I would have grabbed it and ran to the airport.  My frustration level was high.  Our microwave is broken, our water dispenser is broken, we have a kid getting over malaria, one with a bad foot infection, others with various illnesses, on top of that our cook Ibu Poppi has not been doing her job, she hasn’t been making meals that I have asked her to make which makes for A LOT more work for me, there were ants throughout the entire canister of sugar, there were weevils in the oatmeal bag and in the flour, black ants all over my mouthwash and toothpaste, and big red ants that take over the kitchen after 7 pm.

Ugh!  I woke up to pouring rain and it would have been a good day to stay in bed.  Do you ever have days like that?  It is so easy for me to think that if I was in the States I wouldn’t have these frustrations, but that is not true.  The frustrations would be different but they would still be there.  I keep asking God for patience and He is giving me perfect opportunities to work on that with these annoyances.  That is one side of the coin,  I need to look at the other side and rejoice. 

By being here in Indonesia with the schedule we have, we have been able to connect so much more with our kids than we ever did in the States.  Our lives are much more relaxed and unrushed.  We are here in the morning when the kids go off to school and at recess and at lunch and every day after school.  We are in tune with everything they have going on and their friends and their frustrations and joys.  We are able to spot bad habits right away and as Barney Fife would say, “Nip it in the bud.”  We are a part of their classroom and help with games and activities and substitute teach .  Not just one of us but both of us.  That is a treasure that the kids love.  These years of their lives are just flying by.  They are growing up so fast.  We have been able to invest so much of ourselves in their lives and we see the benefits of that.  They have grown so close to us and us to them.  Our devotion time as a family is wonderfully rich.  We have been able to find ways to serve here as a family that helps us focus on someone other than ourselves.

Most importantly, we all feel like this is where God wants us to be right now.  That helps us get through hard times because we know that God has a reason for all of this.  Hard times are not punishments-they are times for us to learn how to hold on tighter to God’s hand.  With all that in mind, I want you to know that we have decided that we will be staying for one more year.  It is our fourth and final year.  This summer MAF is sending us home to the States and then we will be back here for that last year.

Thank you for all the prayer and financial support you all have given us.  You are a vital part of helping us continue. 

We greatly appreciate you.

Love

Rachel

Ice Cream and Meatballs

What would we do without weekends?  I think we would either walk around like zombies or blow up like let-go balloons and be hurtling around in space.  I NEED weekends.  Don’t you?  It is a good time to reconnect with our own kids and with the dorm kids. 

Garth and I have found out that if we want to plan something with the whole hostel we need to set it up in advance and write it down for everyone to see.  That is what we did for our “dorm date” on Saturday.  We try to carefully stay in the budget so every once in awhile we can splurge.  And we did by ordering some pizzas from Papa Ron’s.  (They were yummy!)  Then we took the kids up to the Multi Purpose room and watched “Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs” while we celebrated with cake and ice cream for Josiah’s 12^th birthday.  It was a good time of bonding and togetherness.

Today I took the girls on a date down to the mall to shop.  That usually means Sophie and I watch Emma try on shoes!  That girl is amazing when it comes to shoes.  She is infatuated!  While Soph and I were waiting we took pictures of some more funny Indonesian/English shirts.

All the girls bought was a new Batman outfit (with cape) for Cale and a new shirt for Wyatt.  No shoes!  Yipee!!  Before we went to the store I straightened Sophie’s hair.  (She, of course, wants her hair straight.  Emma wants hers curly.)  On our walk to the mall we stopped at a little push cart and bought ice cream cones for the kids.  10 cents a cone!  Nice huh?

Love you

Rachel

Kids

Here are a few shirts we saw hanging in a local store.  The English is always so funny.  In case you can’t read the last one, it says “Sweet and smart little frizzy”.

Tonight was our first Friday Night Game since the basketball season started.  The kids love running around playing with  all of the other kids that are up here during that time.  Sophie, (always in ‘leader mode’) set up a water project on the playground instructing people to build dams and trenches and all sorts of lakes.  Notice the gender of ALL of her workers…I wonder if I should be worried…

Cale had a terrific time making friends of his own.  (Again notice the gender…)

One of my favorite things to do is to take pictures of children.  I have found that there are some really beautiful kids here.  One day I want to compile all the pictures I have taken of Indonesian kids into some sort of album.  These three girls are just lovely aren’t they?  One of them could have been me.  Or you.  We had nothing to do with where were born.  We have so very much don’t we?  How often do we thank God for where we were born and how we look and all that we have??  Today would be a great day to do just that.

Love you

Rachel

Getting in the swing of things

Sunday

The dorm kids arrive back today after having a month off. It is quite the adjustment for our family, but we are ready, and we enjoy the change. Our cook Ibu Poppi is still gone, so the feat of feeding everyone lies in my lap. I normally don’t mind as long as I have advance warning. What would you make if you were soon to have a houseful of 18? It is a totally different way of thinking here since we do not have the convenience of premade or packaged foods. Say for instance if I wanted to make some lasagnas, this is what it would be like- first I would make the noodles and boil them. While they were drying a bit on a towel I would make the sauce from scratch, then since there is no ricotta and I don’t make my own, I would use the homemade yogurt that I made the night before with some seasonings, and brown the ground beef. There is one store that sometimes has mozzarella so hopefully I would have been able to find some and then while the lasagnas are all in the oven cooking I can make the homemade garlic bread. A few hours later we can all sit down to enjoy my “speedy” creations. I opted not to make lasagna, instead I made a big pot of potato soup, some soft pretzels and a huge batch of pancakes..that should fill some stomachs for awhile.

Today is Monday and the dorm kids are all back now. One came with a broken arm, one is recovering from hernia surgery, one flew in this morning and had to go straight to school, and the rest are here and reluctant to start back up in school. It is always tough to get back in the swing of things. The house is bustling and thankfully, our cook, Ibu Poppi showed up!!! Yeah! That is awesome news for me.

Sophie wrote something that she said I MUST put in my email. We were studying the planets and how cool it is that we are on Earth as it is the only planets with water and just the perfect tilt and the right distance from the sun…so part of the email is from that new information. I am not sure about the rest. But here it is:

From Sophie

We travel threw the world to people in need . We love to follow god any ware he tells us to go. We live in a hostel, but we don’t own it. Now could you pray that we are doing the right thing? ]prayer] thank god for you and me. He made the planets not the same, but he provided a planet just…for…us.

Love you all     Rachel

A New Beach

Today we decided to go to the beach.  We woke up to a nice steady rain and prayed that it would soon stop.  However, it ended up foreshadowing how the whole day was going to be.  We had heard about a new beach that we hadn’t been to and thought we would try it out.  Here are some pictures of our day:

We all had a nice time, and yet have decided that we will not be returning to that beach.  The flies were horrendous and there was no sand, just rocks and shells.  We did find quite a few fun souvenirs, a sand dollar, a lobster shell, hermit crabs and some beautiful rocks and shells.

And now we are back home safe and sound, showered off and ready for some dinner-something about the beach always makes everyone so hungry.

Love you all

Rachel